Soy Sauce from Human Hair

by John Pasden

19 Feb 2004

I don’t know — maybe I missed it — but I haven’t noticed this story yet in any of the mainland blogs that I read. Several friends back in the States have mentioned it to me, and so have several Chinese friends. Yet Google News turned up absolutely nothing for all my searches. I finally found one very shortarticle which discusses it (via Dan, via Fark.com, reportedly, though I can’t find the story on their site). That article is so short that I quote it here in its entirety:

China has ordered a crackdown on domestic ingredient makers after it was discovered one plant had been illegally producing a base for soy sauce made out of human hair.

Apparently this happened in Hubei province. The company discovered that human hair contains amino acids very similar to soy sauce. They could obtain hair from barber shops, boil the amino acids out, then add that to a water/brown sugar/salt mixture, add a little coloring, and viola! — “soy sauce” that meets China’s national standards, without the pesky fermentation process. This unorthodox method of obtaining amino acids came as a result of a huge demand for it in China.

Unfortunately for the company, besides just plain being a disgusting thing to eat, human hair also contains harmful substances.

Previously, when the quality inspection bureau tested Beijing’s soy sauce products, more than 90% met the standard. Before that, it also tested the soy sauce from all over the country, and over 60% met the standard. Customers can use the majority of the output produced by official businesses. There’s no need for concern; it’s reliable.

For those living in China, the soy sauce brand name to avoid is 红帅 (hong shuai).

This link provides an (indirectly related) picture, but it’s the same story you’ll find in a multitude of Chinese news sites, originally published in 北京娱乐信报, and is also the main source for this article.